Lessons from Football

Football is a fascinating sport with millions of fans across hundreds of countries watching thousands of games throughout the year. Everything seems right for the sport i.e. duration, intensity, skill and passion. What makes the game more interesting apart from the footballers are its fans in the stadium. Even on the television, you will find a football match boring unless you can hear the sounds of fans cheering in the background. It makes me wonder what leads them to be so passionate about it and whether it’s actually a good thing. But apart from the joy of watching your team win, there are many other life lessons which we can derive from Football.

What’s leading me to write this post is to get those valuable lessons out in front and also to make a case for why Football or sports in general is important for any individual while trying to justify the number of hours I put in watching football. I am an average 25 year old with an above average interest in Football. I spend my weekends watching EPL, La Liga etc. and everything on my weekend plan revolves around these matches. I got hooked on to Football when I started playing FIFA on Pratik’s laptop and never looked back since. My interest grew as I started following Football and got to know more about it. As for being on the Football field, all I can say is that I have kicked a football a few times and scored goals on both sides of the pitch. For the short amount of time, I have played both as a defender and a striker but I like to think of myself as a midfielder. I know it’s all a little irrelevant information to share but then who’s writing the post.

Coming back to the lessons from Football which I have so clearly mentioned in the title, there are actually a few which we can take away from the game.

-        Football is a team game.

You know you can’t just score goals and win here. In order to win, you need to defend as well. In order to attack, you need midfielders to assist you. In order to defend, you again need the midfielders to do their part. You need to maintain a shape and be on the same wavelength as your teammates. There are set pieces, routines, tactics, movements and every movement should be understood by the other. Your attacking skills counts for nothing if your midfielder can’t find the right pass for you.

It shows you that you can do a lot of things alone but in order to win, you need a team with you.

-        Football needs patience and discipline.

A Football game is 90 min long. As an attacker, you can’t expect to score a goal every other minute even if you are the best player in the world. You need to be watchful, look for opportunities and pounce on them even if it comes in the 90^th minute. There might be matches where you aren’t able to score any goals but you need to be patient and wait for the next chance to make it happen. In life, the chances will be few and far between but you need to make those count.

As a defender, 90 min can feel very long. You need to maintain your discipline and concentration and deal with whatever the other team has to throw at you. Even a lapse of concentration for a few seconds can lead to a goal against your team.

As a midfielder, you need both facets of the game. You need to balance it out properly in the best interest of the team.

Depending on your current role, you can have your own proportion of patience and discipline, but you can’t do without any of these.

-        Football needs skills and practice.

Football is game of skills but skills don’t count for much if you don’t practice properly.  There have been so many players who were so talented but then gave it way just because they didn’t practice properly. If you have a goal in mind, you need to complement your skills adequately with proper practice and discipline to avoid yourself from being an “also there”.

There are so many other valuable lessons in life which we can borrow from Football. I will add those as soon as I find some time.

Life after College

A week after I graduated from college, I started working with American Express in Gurgaon. I was already familiar with the work culture, having already interned there. Work was not very challenging and everything proceeded pretty smoothly. Actually, there wasn't a lot of work to be worried about. What hit me was the lack of activities in this part of life. In college, I always had facilities to play whether it be Volleyball, Football or TT. I had people to play with as well which was not the case here. I had to be content with watching sports on television. Just to emphasize the importance of Football, my weekends and life after work ticked by due to this.

A result of this was trying to explore various other fields. I became quite interested in travelling. I started exploring all the nearby places (on internet) and visited a few of them. I visited Rishikesh, Mussourie, Amritsar, Kasol etc. among many of the places. It was really fun to visit these places with some awesome people. I started reading novels sincerely for the first time in my life. I read Tuesdays with Morrie, The Last Lecture, Laughing Gas, Norwegian Wood among some of these novels. I have never been much of a reader and I was surprised to be able to finish all these. Each of the novels had a different message and it feels enriching to see life from so many different viewpoints.

There are a number of activities which I started but couldn't complete. I was pretty much disturbed to start anything afresh because of the house shifting issue. Some time went into discussing start up ideas and how to go about it. But, there was always a feeling that it is very difficult to achieve. Among other things, I started learning Spanish but I left it before I could learn it properly. I need to continue this and be able to learn spoken Spanish at least. Then I started reading NCERT books for UPSC preparation. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to read and prepare. So, I had to hold off the preparations which went on for around a month. And of course, there is office and some other socializing activities which take up most of the time.

This has been a succinct summary of what happened in the past year. Let's see how it goes from here.

Fargo

Fargo. I have seen only first two episodes of the first season and I am already a fan. Why could that be? Not because it has an interesting plot. Not because the story resonates with me in some way. It's just the nonchalance with which the events take place. There is a guy named Lester who has been bullied all his life and never seems to do the right thing. And then there is this wife who is constantly bickering and never misses an opportunity to make him feel worthless. There is one more character in the plot, let's call him Frank since we still don't know his real name; who upon meeting Lester in a chance interaction says, "You think there are rules in life. Guess what? There aren't!" And then it leads of unfolding of a series of events in a small time. Events you wouldn't have thought of being a daily soap viewer. Frank kills Lester's bully with a knife up the back of his head while he is fucking at a whorehouse. Lester, usually a calm self, kills his wife with a sledgehammer after a seemingly innocuous altercation regarding the washing machine. After realizing what he has done, Lester calls up Frank for help. At the same time, the Police Chief appears at Lester's door to ask questions related to the bully's murder. The cop finds blood in the house and proceeds to arrest Lester when Frank shows up with a rifle and blasts holes in the cop's chest. No consideration whatsoever, just plain assaults. Now the story will revolve around Lester's efforts to escape conviction and how the series of crimes connect to Fargo.

Wish me happy watching!

Superhero Fan

We never really grow old, do we? As kids, we always wished for something which in the back of our minds, we felt was never to be achieved. Still, a glimmer of hope used to persist and illuminate the portion of our brains wherever dreams are stored. Secretly, we wished for superpowers, make imaginary scenarios to decide which superpower is the most potent. We always wished to be a superhero.

What is it about the superheroes which make us so fond of them? Is it about the superpower? About the ability to destroy and achieve what other cannot? About being better than the rest? Nope. It is because we see the superheroes as an extension of ours better selves. We can connect with their stories, feel those as our own. We see them fighting against evil putting their lives on the line. It is because they make us believe that adversity and pain is momentary and that anything is possible. It is because they give us the most powerful feeling of all. It is because they give us hope.

Even if we don't keep superhero action figures on our shelves or keep our walls pasted with their posters, they will always remain in our hearts. And every time we see their movies or read their comics, our childhood dreams will become alive.

Talk about Ambition

Yeah. Let's talk about ambition. Such a fancy word this one. The first thought which comes to mind is your professional life and what you want to achieve there. But linger for a moment and some doubts come creeping in. Is this what you have always wanted? Nope. Could there be more dimensions to my ambition? Well..Yeah. There could be ambitions related to personal life. You might want to be happy or content or free. This isn't very straightforward, is it?

Let's stick to the professional bit. For a introverted geek like me, being better than the rest in academics has been my ambition. I wanted to be be superior in other spheres as well but very soon I realized where my strengths and others' weaknesses lay. I focused on academics and was successful as well if I focus just on the realm of my hometown. But very soon, the horizons expanded and so did the ambitions. Targets were always there. I just had to set my ambitions alongside those. As a kid from a small town, I had a few points to prove and a few mouths to shut up. Well..guess what! That's done and dusted as well. All good. A new achievement unlocked!

Now came the crisis. People here were different. More hardworking than I had ever seen. More ambitious than I had ever been. In the hometown, very few could juggle academics and extra-curricular perfectly. But here people were juggling multiple balls seamlessly. Now what? Wasn't the vehicle of ambition supposed to run along a single lane? Confusing, don't you think? Which path should I take? Should I try my hands on juggling? All the assumptions came crashing down. The feeling stayed since then.

You can't limit ambition to a single road. Just that, with the choices you make, the roads start to diverge until you can only walk one. An inside voice says, "Don't worry. You will figure it out."

Start of a Journey

I was 23 then, roaming around in a foreign country with a backpack and a few Euros in my wallet. As the train hurried along the beautiful meadows in the centre of France, my mind was still stuck around the streets and bridges of Amsterdam. Looking out the window at the lush green expanse with sporadically located red-roofed houses, I reflected upon the events of the last few days. So much had happened in that period that it didn’t seem fair to contain them in a short span of four days.

Almost a year has gone by, and as I try to bring back the details of the trip, a smile registers across my face. When I leave my apartment for Gare de Clermont Ferrand in a mixture of excitement and nervousness, it’s still dark and chilly. The path leading to the main street is unlit and reminds me of the alleys where they show robberies happening in Hollywood movies. That path, to my relief, is short and as I enter the main street, I am greeted by yellow streetlights and a cold gush of wind. I glance at my watch and start walking briskly under the weight of my backpack. My shadow on the right, keeps me company on the empty roads.

Ten minutes have passed as I keep walking and I can feel the dawn approaching. In a few hours, the road would see open shops with people and vehicles rushing around. Some of them, however, would be sitting idly at roadside cafes having croissant and red wine for breakfast. But, at the moment, it wears a deserted look, covered in a yellow blanket of streetlights. Figuring that I am still a long way away from my destination, I start to quicken my steps further and after a cycle of small uphill and downhill sprints, I find myself short of breath. As I stop and look back, I see a silhouette of someone against the streetlight. Around 100m away on the cobbled roads, he is trudging towards me carrying a small backpack similar to mine. Judging by his languid stride, I can see that he has been running for a while. I wave at him and signal him to hurry up. Yashad acknowledges it and starts rushing while I catch my breath near a closed café. We are getting late and missing the morning train to Paris would mean end of our trip even before it starts.

Yashad is my partner in crime for this trip as he has been for so many others. We come from the same college and share an apartment in Clermont Ferrand with two other friends. With a well built body of slightly above average height, he wouldn’t give a first impression of such a gentle guy. But as one gets to know him, he/she starts to notice the oblivious look which goes along with a sense of calm on his round face. Dressed in blue jeans and white pullover, he starts walking beside me carrying a light backpack. As we cross our college on the way to station, we realize it’s time to go for broke. We run our lungs out and finally reach the station a minute before time. But, the mission isn’t over yet. We see the train standing on a different platform. With hopes dwindling after each passing second, we take the underground passageway to reach the platform. After scrambling to get to the train, we throw our bags and bodies inside within dying seconds of the minute. No sooner do we find our seats, the train doors close and we are off on a three hour journey to Paris.

The interior of the train is clean and capacious. A narrow aisle runs in the middle with two seats and a table on either side. The glass windows near the seats are big and wide enough to take a full view of the countryside. With dim lights and early morning laziness all around, the train, however, wears a somber look.  Most of the travelers seem to be on a business trip to Paris. Sitting cozily in their seats with laptops in front, they are either typing out a document or studying a presentation. As we adjust our backpacks and shuffle in our seats, a few eyes turn towards us to find out the reason for this commotion in an otherwise silent compartment. When we settle down eventually, I look outside the window. Shadows of the night are giving way to the arriving dawn and faint outlines of trees and houses are visible at a distance. I get a bizarre notion that the train has an ulterior purpose. Not only is it getting us from Clermont Ferrand to Paris, it’s also taking us on a journey from darkness to light. Amid those thoughts, I look around and find Yashad fast asleep on the seat in front. With nothing much to observe and appreciate, I am also starting to feel sleepy. I check for my passport, cell phone and wallet in that order to ensure their safety and tilt my head towards the window. I close my eyes and sleep takes over within minutes.

(To be continued..)

Sit in Balcony

Here I sit in the balcony of my house. A house I have lived in for nearly a year now. A move to a different place is imminent. There have been some good times in this apartment. But it isn't the right moment to recollect those.

I am just trying to take this moment to breathe in and breathe out while I have time on my hands and food on my plate. A soothing wind blows. The drawing room is lit with yellow light. There is no rush at all. No places to be. No reports to make. No people to entertain. No desire to drink or smoke. No urgency to sleep early. No one is waiting for my call or a message. No great expectations from life. It feels calm. Life is good.